Councilman Urges More Local Organ Donors

By JONATHAN GOMEZ

New York State is dead last in the nation in organ donation, according to testimony before a City Council committee hearing on Tuesday.

John Pardes, Vice President of Live On New York, testified before the health committee that 124,000 Americans are awaiting organ transplants of a heart, lung, kidney or pancreas, 10,000 of them in New York City.

Since only 22 percent of New Yorkers are organ donors, Councilman Costa Constantinides was pushing a  resolution to make April Organ Donor Awareness month in the city.

“It is a public health crisis in New York City that has existed for years,” said the Queens Democrat, referring to the amount of people awaiting organ donations. “Some people have waited several months and others for up to five years, it is something we need to change.”

For Pardes more awareness is the key to raising the numbers in organ donor registration. Last year 83 percent of New Yorkers supported organ donation, but Live On NY, an organization dedicated to raising awareness, found that many New Yorkers don’t want to go to the DMV to register.

“I think there is a lot of positive sentiment around organ donation, but the thing is there is this lack of urgency around it,” said Pardes. “What we have been successful at doing is showing people that there is an urgency and that donating does good.”

Constantinides suggested registering donors during naturalization ceremonies, lowering the age restriction for registration to 16 and also encouraging employers to give workers time off to register.

“We believe that employers should be able to fully support their employees when they become donors of an organ,” testified Helen Irving of Live On NY. “The best help for this city is to start at home, but it needs to be something we talk about else where as well, like in the work place.”

Irving added  that the Department of Homeland security did not give a reason for not wanting registrations during naturalization ceremonies,  just that they did not see “changes in their protocol” in the foreseeable future.